1. Field of the Invention.
The present invention relates to dolls, mannequins and humanoids and to pet animal dolls. More particularly, the invention relates to dolls, mannequins and humanoids which have a personalized or individualized appearance, both as to facial look and expression and as to body structure, and to personalized animal dolls and toys. The present invention further relates to materials adaptable for receiving facial designs, patterns and photographic representations of real life individuals and pet animals for use in the construction of look-alike doll, mannequin and humanoid head, face and body structures and look-alike toy animals, and of methods for applying such look-alike representations thereon and shaping such materials and substratums into lifelike forms.
2. Description of the Prior Art.
In every part of the world, children play with dolls stuffed animals, puppets and other toys. Dolls of all types are collected by children and adults, and mannequins and humanoids are viewed, manipulated and utilized in a multitude of ways and settings for pleasure, recreation and business purposes. According to historians, dolls have the right to be classified as one of the first inventions of man. Anthropologists have determined that humans have been modeling their own figures for over 25,000 years. Dolls were made by the Egyptians more than three thousand years ago and doll-size figures have been found in ancient Rome and Greek tombs. Fashion dolls first appeared in France over six hundred years ago. The fashion dolls used in the royal courts of Europe to display high court dress led to the development of mannequins for the display of clothing designs for women, men and children.
Dolls have been made of a vast selection of materials from cookie dough and wood and wood pulp to fabrics and compositions of all types, including the most advanced plastics. The present invention concerns itself with both composition, cloth and plastic fabrics and cloth over plastic substrates in the manufacture of dolls. Historically, well known early cloth dolls have included the "Mothers Congress Doll" (imprinted features), "Kaptin Kiddo" (1909 comic strip doll) and "Dolly Dingle" rag and paper dolls used to promote newspapers. "Liberty Belle" with a bell dress was designed to celebrate the sesquicentennial of the United States. Liberty of London made cloth dolls of historical characters from druids to archbishops (1920). Coronation dolls of George VI and his Queen were made in 1936. Cloth "Kewpie" dolls were introduced in the 1930's (U.S. Pat. No. 1,785,800). Movie box office fame resulted in Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse "Character Dolls" whereas classic rag dolls were modeled after characters in child classic books, i.e. Raggedy Anne and Raggedy Andy.
The finest cloth dolls made during the period 1870-1910 came from Germany with Kathe Kruse as one of the first to make dolls that looked like real children. In 1919 Madame Lenci of Italy commissioned well-known Italian artists to create a series of doll faces. A patented process using pressed felt formed these dolls which were also dressed in elaborate coordinating felt clothes.
In 1939 a series of dolls produced by Effanbee were called "America's Children", "Look-alike" and "Portrait Dolls." Dewey Cochran developed several basic face shapes to complement these doll concepts. Three sets of 30 of these dolls were used to represent the history of America. Effanbee currently produces vinyl plastic "representative" dolls of famous personages including Winston Churchill, Teddy Roosevelt, and movie stars such as John Wayne and Clark Gable. Shirley Temple "resemblance" dolls were the most successful personality dolls of the 1930's.
American dolls have grown more and more lifelike. Dolls that cried followed the "Dy-Dee Doll" of the 1930's. The "By-Lo Baby" doll looked like a baby. Later dolls have been provided with synthetic plastic hair, washable body and head materials and a myriad of accessory items. The "Toni Doll" had washable hair made of nylon. "Toni," in her original box, came with "Toni Play Wave" hair set liquid. "Teen-age" dolls and "High Fashion" dolls, including BARBIE and KEN dolls, have been very popular over the last 25 years along with their reality oriented environmental accessories and toys. The BARBIE doll is recognized as the most successful doll ever created (nearly 100 million sold). Even a quarter century after this product's introduction, it sells at the rate of more than 6 million units per year to children and adult doll collectors. A principal example of the development of living relationships between children and dolls has been the unprecedented current success of the marketing of the CABBAGE PATCH line of dolls ("little people" soft sculpture dolls) with such dolls being adopted at the time of purchase by or for children (playing the role as parent). Lifelike dolls, mannequins and humanoids that walk and talk have become increasingly in demand and much development work has been expended to provide such items with near-human body and facial structure, surface texture and coloring.
It is an object of the present invention to provide human lifelike and look-alike dolls, mannequines and humanoids, pet animal look-alike dolls and toys and other imprinted fabric items bearing look-alike human and animal representations.
It is a further object of the invention to provide individualized and personalized look-alike dolls, mannequins and humanoids which match in appearance and body proportion a human subject.
It is a still further object of the invention to provide a doll, mannequin or humanoid that presents head and facial structure corresponding to, and bearing a printed-on photographic representation of, a real life individual.
It is another object of the invention to provide a unique method for producing individualized and personalized look-alike dolls, mannequins and humanoids, pet animal look-alike dolls and toys and other imprinted fabric items bearing look-alike humans and animal representations.
It is still another object of the invention to provide a unique method for producing a material bearing a printed-on photographic representation of a real life individual and which is conformable to a pre-form of, or adaptable to stuffing to form, a doll, mannequin or humanoid head and facial structure representation of such individual.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a unique method for providing a material bearing a computer generated photographic representation of a real life individual in a form which is conformable to the head and facial structure representation of such individual as generated by direction of a computer.
Another object of the invention is to provide a method for producing individualized and personalized look-alike dolls, mannequins and humanoids and pet animal look-alike dolls and toys by computer reception of human or animal imagery information and computer direction of the automated manufacture of such items.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a method for producing individualized and personalized look-alike dolls, mannequins and humanoids and pet animal look-alike dolls and toys by computer matching of human and animal imagery information with interrelated computer metric information systems to accomplish computer aided design (CAD) and computer aided manufacture (CAM) of such items and personalized look-alike printouts for home cut-and-sew kits and craft projects.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed description of the invention, taken with the accompaying drawings.